Florence is a city that has a strong cultural tradition.
The global standardization of consumer products has meant that the search for the unique shopping experience continues to remain important. The italian tradition has unified food with art and food with fashion.
Jenkyn Jones (2005) made a study of the history of fashion and of the customs of different countries which revealed that all societies, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, use clothing and adornments to communicate social and personal information.
Many items and styles of clothing have taken a symbolic meaning. Sometimes is so important to buy a dress in the exact location where it has been made, that the relatively cost of air travel and freight has plummeted. While clothes can be found and bought everywhere, even on the internet, to buy fashion design in cities where eighty per cent of designer work is made, it is a unique shopping experience. Each city has its own “design identity”, or characteristic.
Fashion is a serious business in Florence and there are fewer avant-garde or street style labels than in the other cities of Italy.
The commercial exploitment of the image of Florence and the interpretation of the centre of the town as place of culture and leisure, are important indicators of this process that follows the social and cultural changes, as well as the economic and physic ones. Tour operators advertise shopping tourism in Florence: “It would be hard to imagine a more beautiful setting to spend a few days shopping and sightseeing”. “Milan may be the capital of Italian fashion but Florence is a much more relaxing place, with the retail district and all the main sights squeezed into an area about the size of London’s West End.
In the last years the center of Florence has turned into a more shopping related area, many renaissance buildings host luxury boutiques. The last changes from the center where made to accommodate the fashion industry, as it bring tourism and money to the city. Two times a year Florence host a fashion week, Pitti Uomo, with the result of hotels being fully booked, and publicity everywhere in the world at the Italian fashion but either at the city, that seems always more related.
For example: the fashion designer Gianfranco Ferrè has recently inaugurated a show room of 400 mq in Palazzo Rucellai’s ground floor; the famous building was projected by Leon Battista Alberti in 1455. Other places symbols of a complete change of use destination are the historical Caffè Giacosa, that has become Roberto Cavalli’s show room; the Caffè Doney, now turned into Armani Caffè ; the English perfumery Henry Roberts now owned by Hogan fashion house; San Lorenzo’s surrounding streets are now invaded by shop-stands and there is the new atmosphere of “ mall for tourists”. There is an absolute impression of being in the back stage of a show put together for other protagonists.
Antonietta Fishta
London
